Project description
Citizen energy communities for increased renewable energy capacity
The achievement of the EU climate targets for 2030 will be facilitated by the widespread adoption of renewable energy. Hosting capacity can be reached through the market uptake of citizen energy communities (CEC). The EU-funded LIGHTNESS project will increase the renewable energy capacity through social engagement, a regulatory roadmap, a low-cost technological package and innovative business models. The project aims to reduce final energy consumption and CO2 emissions with the implementation of ambitious end users' engagement plans that will directly involve more than 500 households and more than 30 tertiary buildings. The LIGHTNESS solution will establish digital twins for the integrated assessment of CEC case studies in five EU countries.
Objective
LIGHTNESS will increase the Renewable Energy hosting capacity, to securely achieve the EU target for 2030, by supporting the market uptake of Citizen Energy Communities through a turnkey social engagement, regulatory roadmap, low-cost technological package and innovative business models to unlock the full flexibility potential, reduce the final energy consumption and CO2 emissions and bring economic, social and environmental benefits to the communities and across the energy value chain. LIGHTNESS solution will elaborate and execute ambitious end users engagement plans for the involved sites with continuous iterations and solution adaptation to achieve a direct engagement of +500 households and +30 tertiary buildings and an immediate replication potential to over 70.000 persons. LIGHTNESS solution will create digital twins for holistic assessment of 5 CECs case studies across 5 countries to be then deployed and monitored. Case studies consist in an energy cooperative (ES), a social housing building (PL), a private multi-apartment building (IT), a business park (FR) and 2 CECs to uphold the interaction among them (NL). The different regulatory and policy frameworks will allow to exchange best practices and providing road maps for the authorities. Overall, LIGHTNESS will engage +3000 end users, professionals, policy makers in EU, will consent a minimum 25% increase of renewable hosting capacity by making available up to 20% of flexibility in peak times from residential and tertiary buildings, will reduce up to 30% the Prosumers and CECs energy cost and up to 30% of CAPEX and OPEX costs for DSOs. LIGHTNESS has received the support from 59 organisations from which we can highlight EPEX-Spot, STEDIN, LIANDER, ACCIONA, VEOLIA, BAM, 10 EU cities, 9 energy agencies, 9 energy cooperatives, and 3 extra EU replicators from India, Turkey and Africa/America.The project management structure is gender balanced with two women and two men serving in the positions of responsibility.
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Funding Scheme
CSA - Coordination and support actionCoordinator
28033 Madrid
Spain
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.